Alfred Binet - Sensations Quotes

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When making the analysis of matter we impliedly admitted two propositions: first, that sensation is the tertium quid which is interposed between the excitant of our sensory nerves and ourselves; secondly, that the aggregate of our sensations is all we can know of the outer world, so that it is correct to define this last as the collection of our present, past, and possible sensations.

Alfred Binet
Since we seek to know what is the physical phenomenon we perceive, we must first enunciate this proposition, which will govern the whole of our discussion: to wit— Of the outer world we know nothing except our sensations.

Alfred Binet
The world is but an assembly of present, past, and possible sensations; the affair of science is to analyze and co-ordinate them by separating their accidental from their constant relations.

Alfred Binet
This observation might be repeated with regard to all objects of the outer world which enter into relation with us. Whether the knowledge of them be of the common-place or of a scientific order matters little. Sensation is its limit, and all objects are known to us by the sensations they produce in us, and are known to us solely in this manner. A landscape is nothing but a cluster of sensations. The outward form of a body is simply sensation; and the innermost and most delicate material structure, the last visible elements of a cell, for example, are all, in so far as we observe them with the microscope, nothing but sensation.

Alfred Binet
We are, for the rest, so wrapped up in sensations that none of our boldest conceptions can break through the circle.

Alfred Binet